We've all had about enough of lauding 2012 as the greatest year of anything,
ever. Let's re-calibrate by watching lots of sportspeople do lots of things
badly. It's far more fun.

Homecoming Of The Year After becoming the first Venezuelan ever to win a F1 race, Pastor Maldonado returned home to a hero's welcome and what should have been one long victory lap around Caracas, but ended up being a shorter spin than he had planned.

Penalty Of The Year Red Bull Salzburg's Jonathan Soriano narrowly beats Flock of Seagulls tribute act Neymar to a gong that was harder to call this year than the BBC Sports Personality of the Year was.

Free Kick Of The YearEvanildo Rodrigues of El Jaish, one of Qatar's top-flight teams, does his bit to convince the rest of us that all the critics of the country hosting a World Cup probably, you know, may have a bit of a point:

Miss Of The Year This year's keenly contested 'Ronny Rosenthal award for services to missing from an impossibly short distance' goes to a man once, but no longer, known as 'The Leo Messi of the Adriatic', Lorenzo Insigne of Pescara. All together now, 'My Mum/my Grandmother/Emile Heskey (pre-Australia) could have scored from there!'

Delivery Of The Year When Jonathan Trott smacked this sub-dolly of a ball to the boundary in the fourth Test of England's victorious tour of India the locals weren't pleased with his lack of sportsmanship. The lack of sporting ability, however, from Ravindra Jadeja was undoubtedly worse.

Stop Of The Year In a World T20 match that produced a masterclass in the art of the dropped catch one man stood head, shoulders and butter-fingers above the rest. Step forward Pakistan's Sohail Tanvir:

Liu Xiang's Olympics, Vol. 2 Lui Xiang suffered heartbreak in Beijing when injury forced him out of his home Games. London gave him a chance to make up for the pain ... but he literally failed to clear the first hurdle.

Pole Vault Of The YearGreat Britain's Kate Dennison narrowly missed out on the pole vault final this summer after missing out on clearing 4.40m, by a distance greater than that. What goes up must come down, but in pole vault it's supposed to be somewhere in front of where you started.